


legs and limbs and lips

by faaulkner



Category: Hannibal (TV), Saw (Movies)
Genre: Abigail Hobbs Lives, Amanda Young Lives, Cunnilingus, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Hook-Up, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Overstimulation, Post-Episode: s02e13 Mizumono, Retrospective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:00:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23943559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faaulkner/pseuds/faaulkner
Summary: Sometimes Abigail will catch Amanda studying her, like she isn’t quite sure how she ended up in her lap.Abigail remedies this by merely stepping into her orbit; winding her arms around her waist and looking up at her through her lashes, eyes made wide and pleading. She actually dwarves her by a few inches, but shemakesherself smaller, if only to replace that pondering expression with something with more heat.-Abigail decides to be on her own, if only for a little while. She soon meets a woman whose past might just be a little too similar to hers.
Relationships: Abigail Hobbs/Amanda Young
Kudos: 15





	legs and limbs and lips

**Author's Note:**

> This came about while I was listening to Murder Song by Aurora and thinking of these two women respectively, and then I was thinking of these two women _together_ , and by then my brain was doing that dumb thing where it hangs onto an idea like a stubborn dog with a grimy old tennis ball. Patiently and lovingly read over by [Stella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SALJStella), who's been one of my favorite stars for a literal decade now. Title is courtesy of Flowers of Flesh and Blood by Nicole Dollanganger.

The bartender gives her a look over her proffered ID, as if he can smell a rat but is too busy to properly do anything about it. Never mind the fact that she’d already shown it get into this joint, or the fact that she technically hasn’t _needed_ it for coming onto four years now. Put her in the right outfit and scrub the makeup from her freckles, and Abigail could still pass for a fresh seventeen.

She decides to do something about that, and offers the man a smile when he returns with her drink a minute later. Warm, alluring, and far too grateful to be paired with a simple thank you for a _drink_. The double take in his eyes is instantly gratifying. Abigail has always been aware that she was at least easy on the eyes, and if she was lucky others would occasionally take note as well. But only recently has she begun to harness this strength, honing in on it until it’s become a weapon like so many other parts of her. It’s a new development, but new is exactly what she’s looking for at the moment.

“Your friends abandon you?”

The question catches her mid-sip, and she turns to the woman now at her side. There’s a chance she might have been studying her before making herself known. Abigail finds herself licking her lips before responding.

“Nope. I’m alone. Alone as I’ll ever be.” And she is. She’d made Will and Hannibal promise to not track her down before she’d left. She imagines she has around a month before they break it.

“That’s too bad,” the woman muses, then becomes occupied with the task of ordering for herself and the small group of people she’s with. Missing the attention, Abigail takes this chance to examine her. She appears to be in her late thirties, perhaps even kissing forty. Her eyes seem to take in every detail of the room at once, always roaming in a face of delicate, bird-like features. The dark red lipstick on her mouth looks like dried blood.

“You on the other hand, seem to have too many friends with you,” Abigail says, has to raise her voice a bit at the beginning to catch her notice.

Those eyes turn back to her, glimmering with mischief like they haven’t just met.

“Eh, they’re not really my friends. We just know too much about each other to be strangers.”

That piques Abigail’s curiosity, and she almost considers asking about it. Then again she wants to ask anything, really, if only to hear more of the her brittle voice.

“Do you always let strangers know too much about you?”

The woman humors her, leaning closer. “Only the ones who really, really wanna know.

Her gaze on Abigail feels like a goddamn sunbeam on a cloudy day. She can’t tell if it’s her or just the attention _itself_ that’s making her feel giddy with it.

“I’m always interested in learning.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Anything you have for me, really.”

And no, that was the wrong thing to say, because instantly the woman hardens, taking a half step back.

“If you’re looking for something in particular, you’re not finding it with me. That’s not my thing anymore.”

Abigail shakes her head quickly, a delicate laugh escaping her because of the misunderstanding and also because wow, any _more_. First night out and she already knows how to pick them.

“Sorry, but that’s not what I was talking about.”

The woman’s little scowl melts into something else, warm and amused, though she seems to want to hide it.

"I think I'm a little old for you, sweetheart."

Abigail shrugs. "I don't really see that bothering you.”

She laughs, expression disbelieving for a moment. But just as quickly it shifts, her eyebrows arching up into the universal face for _what the hell_. She reaches over and places a calloused hand in Abigail’s.

“I’m Mandy. Amanda.”

She slips on the same smile she’d offered the bartender, though it’s worlds away as she might just _mean_ _it_ this time.

“Abby. Abigail.”

…

It’s all too easy for Amanda to overpower her once she’s got her in her bed, and Abigail lets her. She likes the feeling of her wiry muscle covering her, holding her down with its deceptive strength. They keep trying to break apart to undress, but end up finding themselves attached at the mouth once more. For the most part, Abigail could very easily _never_ want to stop kissing her.

“Am I gonna offend you if I ask if you’ve ever been with a woman before?” Amanda’s face is too close to hers even as she speaks, uneven breathing fanning out over her.

“No, and no,” Abigail says, and waits for the slow realization to trickle into her eyes.

“God _damn_ , baby.” Her hands creep under her top, rucking it up to toy with the underside of her bra. “And you really choose me to do the honors?”

Abigail isn’t sure just _how_ honorable the task is. By the time she’d figured out that it was a task she’d wanted done at all, she’d simply had a _lot_ more pressing matters to attend to. Briefly and rather inappropriately, a long faded image of Marissa flashes before her eyes; laughing at something Abigail had said, leaning in close to playfully flick at her hair. She has to blink several times to tuck it away.

“I trust you.” The words are rushed, as Abigail finds herself preoccupied with pulling her in closer again, but she means them.

Amanda laughs as she obliges her, pressing a hot line of kisses up her throat. “Remember that you said that.”

She stays the night of course, but Amanda seems to surprise them both when she doesn’t immediately kick her to the curb the next morning. In fact, Amanda seems quietly baffled at most things when it comes to Abigail. Sometimes Abigail will catch her studying her, like she isn’t quite sure how she ended up in her lap.

Abigail remedies this by merely stepping into her orbit; winding her arms around her waist and looking up at her through her lashes, eyes made wide and pleading. She actually dwarves her by a few inches, but she _makes_ herself smaller, if only to replace that pondering expression with something with more heat.

It's after they've done this a few times that Amanda seems to break some internal promise and ask what the fuck happened to her ear ("Stupid hunting accident."). Later that very night, when Abigail is trailing her fingers along the scars on Amanda's thighs, she answers her unspoken question ("Stupid hunting accident.").

They of course both know the other is lying, but neither of them mind it all that much.

…

They’re curled up in bed, TV on but volume low, takeout boxes abandoned on the floor from when they were both too lazy to dispose of them. Abigail almost wants to make a pinched face at this, thinking only of the reaction she’d once get if she’d even _brought_ food to bed. But Amanda is sated and tipsy around her, and she likes the sight and feel of it too much to even move.

It could even be considered sweet, save for the fact that Abigail is planted between Amanda’s legs, back to her front, with Amanda’s arms tight around her and her fingers trailing possessively along her tummy. Amanda likes to do this often: more or less scoop her up in her arms, sometimes when Abigail is mid-sentence, and manhandle her closer or into her lap. As if she’s more doll than girl. Abigail had pretended to grumble at first, but even she can't ignore the pure manic pleasure it visibly gives her.

“ _Ugh_ ,” Amanda suddenly grunts at the TV, some news piece on the screen that Abigail could not be _paid_ to describe in this moment in time. “They’re just now talking about inmates having to sew shit like it hasn’t been going on for _years_. That’s just how it is in most women's prisons. I’ve never had to but _fuck_ , shit looks tedious.”

Abigail opens her mouth to ask a question; the next, most obvious question. But then she backtracks. Chooses to ask a different one.

"What were you in prison for?"

Amanda's sneering laugh is pure heat where it lands behind Abigail's whole ear, eliciting a shiver through her frame. Her hand drifts lower, right under the band of her panties to toy with her pubic hair. Abigail's so swept away with thrusting forward into the touch, searching for more, more, more, that she's almost forgotten about her requested answer when it comes.

"Which time?”

…

“‘Manda, ‘ _Mandamandamanda_.”

Her voice is high and pitiful, verging on pornographic, but Abigail is past the point of helping it. She braces her heels on the bed and grinds her sex even harder into Amanda’s waiting mouth, all but humping her face. But Amanda seems to accept the onslaught eagerly, sucking and lapping at her as if she hasn’t been gorging herself on her taste for an hour now.

It’s already been too much, but something changes to offset their precarious balance. Her death grip on her own sore nipples tips the scale, or perhaps it’s the wet sound of Amanda reaffirming her suction on her aching clit. Either way she’s knows she’s done for. Hips going rigid, open thighs quivering, Abigail tumbles into her third orgasm with a gasp like she’s being strangled.

She has to push Amanda away by the forehead once she can move; anything more and she feels like she’ll burst into flame. Amanda seems loathe to move, even still, fighting against the touch until she overpowers it enough to nuzzle into her stomach instead. It makes Abigail giggle, girlishly.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she says on an exhale. “You don’t like giving up, do you?”

“Are you complaining?” Amanda asks, voice muffled by her flesh.

“No. God, no. It’s just that you go at me sometimes like you’re trying to eat me alive.”

The words spill from her without thought, and her whole body freezes as if she’s just said a filthy word in front of her parents. But, no. She’s about as far away from any parental figure she’s ever had as she can be. The shock short circuits something in her brain, trips her up, until it has no choice but to bubble past her lips in laughter. It grows in volume, rising to hysterics, and it dislodges Amanda from her stomach with the force of it.

She laughs until her sides ache, laughs until she begins to cry, and eventually Amanda stops asking what the hell is wrong with her and just holds her through it.

…

It’s been long enough that Abigail only feels slightly strange about using her key to get into Amanda’s place unannounced. That in itself took some getting used to, Amanda all but jabbing the piece of metal at her despite them both knowing it was a bad idea on some level.

She’d still accepted it though, and allowed Amanda to fuck her silly for her troubles, afterwards. She has a few good ideas of what that says about her, but she doesn't think she minds.

She calls Amanda’s name, a small trickle of trepidation beginning in her when no response comes. But there she is on the couch, nested among her beaten in cushions and still only in the t shirt and panties she wears to bed. She hasn’t turned any of the lights on despite the late evening setting in, and the fading sunlight outside casts the whole room in ghostly shadow. Amanda seems unaware of it, expression distant, hands curled restlessly over her thighs.

“Hey.” Abigail tries for her attention again. “You alright?”

Amanda finally looks up at that, blinking at Abigail like she’s trying to figure out what she is. It’s the wrong time, Abigail knows, but she doesn’t think she’s ever seen her look so sad, and so beautiful.

“Someone who used to be really important to me died fifteen years ago today.”

That throws Abigail, but only for a moment. “How did they die?”

An abrupt exhale gusts its way from Amanda’s nose. Abigail thinks it was meant to be a laugh at some point.

“It’s a long story. Let’s say it was cancer.”

Abigail nods, idling. She knows at this point an _I’m sorry_ is overdue, but she also knows it’s about the last thing Amanda would want to hear.

“Do you want to talk about them?” she asks.

“Not really. Sometimes I go back and forth on whether he should have been important to me in the first place.”

It’s then that Abigail steps further into the room, the better to see her, and has to fight a gut punch of shock from showing on her face.

For the duration of their conversation and no doubt even longer than that, Amanda’s been digging her fingernails into her bare thighs, sinking them in over and over so that a sea of gouges sit atop her old scars. Her skin is littered with them, a mangled mess. Abigail wants to shriek at her to stop, but she doesn’t. She also wants to press her mouth to the marks, but she doesn’t.

Instead, more delicately than she thought herself capable, she takes hold of Amanda’s wrists and pulls, unyielding in her grip until Amanda finally lifts her hands. With no barrier to prevent her Abigail moves to sit astride her, wrapping her arms around her form and resting her face in her throat. Enveloping her.

Amanda allows this development, though she remains limp even as she moves to hold onto Abigail’s hips. It occurs to Abigail that this is their first embrace that _she’s_ initiated. She doesn’t think it’s an accident on Amanda’s part.

“I know how that feels,” she mumbles, and she can feel Amanda’s rough exhale against her lips.

They remain like that for what feels like hours, even when Abigail has to ignore her legs protesting the position. The last of the light outside disappears completely, leaving them in darkness.

…

Things are about as normal as whatever brand of normalcy they’ve carved out together is, until the exact moment they're not.

Amanda is in a mood. Which means absolutely nothing as Amanda is _always_ in a mood, but tonight is different. It takes around the third comment, the innumerable lingering look, for it to _ping_ in Abigail’s brain just what the difference is.

Honestly, she’s a bit surprised it’s gone as long as it has.

“How long have you known?” she asks once she’s got Amanda on the couch, without preamble. She keeps her voice level, but she can feel her heart clamoring like a trapped animal in her chest.

“Since the second or third time I saw you, I think.” At first, Abigail thinks Amanda looks calm, but then she realizes her expression is more _resigned_ than anything. “I knew you looked sort of familiar, but I was locked up when they found your dad so I couldn’t be sure. I looked him up just to get the idea out of my head and, well. There you were.” Pause. “You’re supposed to be missing. Or dead.”

Abigail sees no point in denying it. She nods.

“Aren’t there supposed to be the other two with you? The men? Or have you ditched them?”

Abigail is floored for a moment, having never heard Will and Hannibal described so blithely before. _The men_. It’s as if they’re a mere footnote in her story, instead of the reverse that it’s been from the moment they kicked down her front door.

“No, they’re - they’re around. I’m just not talking to them right now.”

Amanda nods sagely, an expression on her face like she wants to make a smartass quip but won’t. Something about daddy issues never truly leaving you alone. It’s what Abigail would have said.

“You didn’t give me any sort of fake name, when we met.”

“I guess I just…didn’t feel the need to, with you.”

Another nod from Amanda, and she rises from her seat with a great sigh. Abigail watches as she moves to the fridge, pulls out a beer for herself and one of those fruity little spritzers that she keeps for Abigail despite teasing her endlessly about it. Pointedly pushes said fruity little spritzer across the counter in Abigail’s direction. Abigail lasts long enough for the _snap_ of Amanda prying open her beer to slice into the silence before bursting.

“Are you going to do something about it?”

Amanda laughs. She doesn’t even look up. “What is there to do? You’re clearly keeping your nose clean, and I think I’ll die before I willingly talk to a cop again. As far as I’m concerned you’re just the girl I’m fucking.”

Just the girl she’s fucking. It sounds so normal, so overwhelmingly basic. It takes her a second, but she realizes that overwhelmingly basic is _exactly_ what she’d left for. She’d searched for some grand adventure, not even knowing what that entailed, and only ended up with what every other twenty-something woman yearns for. It’s strangely comforting, to know that she’s not completely defective in this way. That not _all_ of her self has been scraped out by hands that were both harsh and loving in equal measure, no matter how hollowed and bloodied she feels sometimes.

It’s going to make this all hurt so much more, she thinks, when those hands are inevitably going to come grabbing for her again.

The thought spurs her to stand, ignoring her drink in favor of crowding Amanda against the counter, hands gripping the cheap formica on either side of her body. Amanda doesn’t even resist, preening under her like she was expecting this to happen. Which she no doubt was.

For the first time Abigail doesn’t make herself smaller before her, towering over her at her full height.

“You’re not scared I’m…dangerous, or something?” she asks, the words breathed more than actually spoken.

And at that Amanda smiles up at her, the slow, lilting one that makes something in Abigail’s gut twinge pleasantly.

“No, I know you are, baby. But haven’t you realized by now that I might be, too?”

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone is curious about Amanda's situation, here she survived the events of Saw III and was arrested for being involved with John's work. She then proceeded to get herself the best lawyer known to man and play the Stockholm Syndrome card like a fiddle, and was rewarded for it with a light-ish sentence of around fifteen years. She then got out for perfect behavior, was put on parole, yada yada, hand wavy grasp of the American justice system. I'm aware that this is not realistic in the _slightest_ , especially for the caliber of her murders, but it's fiction, Richard, just let me have my fun.
> 
> Because I have no self control, I made a [lil tiny mix](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Ti83TOweNK6Tgua61Ho69?si=cnqUgwgfSjWgg8eGdSJJag) for this lil tiny 'verse.


End file.
